Sunday Poetry: Omen to Get Your Ass Up

By Angel Nafis

December 24, 2017

"Summoning her is summoning me"

Angel Nafis is exactly who you should be reading. Her poems are acrobatic, interested in the everyday as a portal to something better, and they know and care that the reader is there. The speaker’s eye here is everywhere, ready to praise even the parts of our existence that we’re often tired of — and I know a lot of us are tired. I hope this poem gives you a kick in the same way it did for me. It reminded me that poets are always here to take us forward. —Alex Dimitrov

It’s hard for me to believe, but, believeI do the morning passed me by withouta thought or surrender I am a miserableSunday shut-in thirst caked upwithout a quench in sight until

I see my homie waiting to crossthe impossible intersection of Flatbush & WoodruffIt could be any nigga afro’d, with metallicred headphones, gym shoes, unbothered by the day,but I know who I know So I tear open the

bedroom window force my own messy headthrough the metal bars which are really justsuggestions anyway & right away the airis kind as ever against my chin trailing my neck,my breast-plate, an alarm as good as a homie who

I yell down to who sees me now & is Hey Boo-ingrushing past a zillion strangers with her take-out chickento the door of my building no matter the dice game or puddles of piss She says a walk around the hoodgot her whole situation right so now it’s clear who I can be Summoning her is summoning me

Here I am glad to be another loud mouththrough an open window exercising the rightto be beloved I am saved for a moment the suspended heaven of being recognizedHolleringAshley! Ashley! Ashley!

Angel Nafis is the author of BlackGirl Mansion (Red Beard Press/ New School Poetics, 2012). She earned her BA at Hunter College and is an MFA candidate in poetry at Warren Wilson College. Her work has appeared in The Rattling Wall, The BreakBeat Poets Anthology, MUZZLE Magazine, The Rumpus, Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere.

Alex Dimitrov is the author of Together and by Ourselves (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), Begging for It (Four Way Books, 2013), and the online chapbook American Boys (2012). He is the recipient of the Stanley Kunitz Prize from the American Poetry Review and a Pushcart Prize.